Operational Excellence Guys are Omelette Experts

What is more cliché than post that begins with “So today I ordered an omelette this morning and….”? Well nothing. But sometimes clichés are fun too. 

So today, I ordered an omelette this morning and (wink-wink) … when this Tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette) landed in front of me in the middle of a random restaurant in West Africa, I had an epiphany: Operational Excellence professionals are basically omelette experts. 

Hold on and let me walk you through it.

There’s a line that goes: “when the eggs are broken, one can still make the best omelette”.

Well that’s exactly what Operational Excellence experts, facilitators and project managers do. 

This saying captures a lot of what happens in the field.  Sponsor wants something else and/or more. Make an omelette. Team members cannot be part of the project anymore. Make an omelette. Unrelated operational emergency puts you and your project on the bench - but deadlines won’t change. What kind of omelette will we have today, sir? 

Everyday brings its own lot of trouble. And that’s perfectly fine because that’s what we’re here for. A facilitator is there to bring the team forward and DELIVER a helpful product at the end of the day. Despite all the trouble. Despite all the broken eggs. Because the only certainty in day-to-day operations is that trouble will come. And the subliminal question that is asked to you as a facilitator is “Chief, what can we make out of this?” -meaning how can we keep going forward, and not only “How many eggs did we make sure not to break today?” -meaning, are we just on track?

So tell me, how good were your omelettes these days?